Novozymes upgrades its packaging line

The Palcut sheet dispenser offers Novozymes more up-time and improves safety

Filling and palleting of the large bags is carried out with great precision. The process is fully automated and involves the packaging robot carefully placing an interlayer sheet on the pallet before the bag is filled with enzymes ready for transport to customers across Europe. But it hasn’t always been this way.

Safety concerns

The process of using interlayer sheets protects the bag from splinters from the wooden pallet and stabilises the load during transport. However, in the past, this process gave rise to expensive palleting line stoppages and safety concerns. The problem arose when the packaging robot attempted to lift the bottom sheet in the paper magazine.

The four suction cups on the sheet applicator tended to lift several sheets at once and then drop them, causing the system to shut down. This occurred because the bottom sheets in the interlayer had a tendency to stick together and the stack of sheets would then have to be manually “aerated” to prevent them from sticking together.

“At times, dropped sheets caused the palleting line to shut down, which can be very expensive,” says Bent Holst, a technician at Novozymes’ factory in Kalundborg.

“Just as serious were the safety concerns, because employees had to enter the packaging zone and pick up the sheets that had been dropped. We consider this to be a very serious issue at Novozymes,” he continues.

Reassuringly simple

The problem of palleting line stoppages at Novozymes was resolved by using a fully automated Palcut sheet dispenser, which cuts one sheet at a time from a roll of Antim anti-slip paper.

“This has very simply resolved the problem of our sheet applicator dropping sheets because it picked up several sheets at a time, so triggering a shut-down. There have been no safety concerns since then either,” says Bent Holst, who continues:

“The solution is simple and ingenious, because it cuts one sheet at a time from the roll, and when the packaging robot removes it, a new one is automatically produced.

The sheet dispenser has been adapted to fit the very limited space that is available on the packaging line. The sheets are cut to the dimensions 1000 x 1000 mm, so that they are suitable for use on Novozymes’ pallets, which measure 1050 x 1000 mm. The rolls of interlayer sheets last about three weeks and are easy to change.

The new sheet dispensing system was installed in early 2017 and the results have been extremely good. The solution was developed in partnership with Palcut and Papyrus, who supplied the paper and is a Palcut dealer.

“Just as serious were the safety concerns, because employees had to enter the packaging zone and pick up the sheets that had been dropped. We consider this to be a very serious issue at Novozymes,” he continues.

Essential safety

According to Bent Holst, interlayer sheets are essential. This is partly because they protect the 1,000kg sacks from the unfinished wooden pallet and partly because they stabilise the load and reduce the risk of the bag sliding off the pallet during transport.

Tests carried out at Novozymes have shown that bigbags do not slide off the pallet when the special Antim anti-slip paper is used. They have tested the risk in practice by placing bigbags on pallets with an anti-slip sheet between them. They then subjected the pallets with a one-tonne bigbag to various loads while transporting them with a fork-lift truck.

“It was clear that the bigbag was not sliding around on the pallet, but it might only begin to tilt. We have not had any transport accidents caused by sacks sliding off the pallet since we switched to using anti-slip sheets,” says Silas Belling, Associate Manager at Novozymes.

Best practice

Bent Holst is very satisfied with the solution and is looking forward to a similar system being installed at the factory in Bagsværd as a result of the best practice approach which Novozymes has adopted.